[Haskell-cafe] about Haskell code written to be "too smart"

[Tim Newsham]

>> When you think about it, what you are saying is that Haskell programmers 
>> shouldn't take advantage of the extra tools that Haskell provides. 
>
> No, I'm not saying this.
>
> But, as an example, when you read a function like:
>
> buildPartitions xs ns = zipWith take ns . init $ scanl (flip drop) xs ns
>
> that can be rewritten (argument reversed) as:
>
> takeList :: [Int] -> [a] -> [[a]]
> takeList [] _         =  []
> takeList _ []         =  []
> takeList (n : ns) xs  =  head : takeList ns tail
>    where (head, tail) = splitAt n xs

I think this is a perfect example.  Haskell allows you to abstract out the 
concepts of recursion, zipping and iteration.  Your alternative reproduces 
these explicitely and intermixes them.  You are saying that programmers 
should avoid using these higher level abstractions and instead fall back 
to more explicit constructs that are, for you, easier to read.

> The problem is that I have still problems at reading and understanding code 
> that is too much terse...
> Because I have to assemble in my mind each block, and if there are too many 
> blocks I have problems.

It takes practice to read and to write.  The benefit is more 
expressiveness and more code reuse.

> Manlio

Tim Newsham
http://www.thenewsh.com/~newsham/